Vol. 8 No. 2 February, 2016 Forward in Christ F The magazine of ForwardC in Faith North America. Lent Also in this issue: The Primates Meeting C4SO, Missional And Misguided What is Anglo-Catholicism? $30 Annual Subscription Will The Real Gabriel Please $200 Bundle Subscription Stand Up? 2 Forward in Christ, www.fifna.org Vol. 8 No. 2 Contents February, 2016 ForwardPublished in by Faith 4 In The News 13 Thinking Out Loud Fr. Michael Heidt is Editor of William Murchison is an author and North America Forward in Christ and a priest in journalist, living in Dallas, Texas. the Diocese of Fort Worth. 14 Fighting Temptation Upholding the Faith and Order 5 The Primates Meeting, Fr. Gene Geromel is Rector of of the Undivided Church Responses St. Bartholomew’s Anglican Church, Statements by Archbishop Foley Swartz Creek, Michigan Beach, FiFNA and Bishop Jack Iker. 15 C4SO, Missional. And Business Office 7 The Primates Meeting, Misguided P.O. Box 210248 Bedford, TX 76095-7248 Aftermath The Very Rev. Dr. Donald P. Richmond, a widely published Email: The Rev. Canon Dr. Gavin author and monastic illustrator, is [email protected] Ashenden lives in Jersey, in the an Anglican clergyman serving United Kingdom. with the Church of the Nazarene. www.forwardinchrist.orgWeb 8 Who Dares Call it by Name? 18 Will The Real Gabriel www.fifna.org A.S. Haley is a lawyer, living in Facebook: www.facebook.com/FIFNA California. Please Stand Up? Twitter: @FiF_NA Fr. John Jordan is Rector of 10 Make a Right Beginning St. Laurence, Grapevine, in the 1-800-225-3661 toll free of Lent Diocese of Fort Worth, Texas. The Rt. Rev. Jack Iker is Bishop of 19 News From Down Under Fort Worth, Texas. Editor Br. Ned Kerber is Prior of the The Rev’d Michael Heidt Anglican Benedictines of Christ the 204 N. Rosemont Ave. 11 Lent And The Gospel of King and VP FiF Australasia. Dallas, TX 75208 Suffering Email: Fr. Lawrence Bausch is President 20 What is [email protected] of FiFNA and Rector of Holy Anglo-Catholicism? Trinity, Ocean Beach, San Diego, Fr. Will Brown is Rector of Holy Forward In Christ California Subscriptions Cross, Dallas, in the Diocese of is sent free of charge 12 Parish. Highlight Dallas. Fr. John Alexander is to all contributing members of Christ the Redeemer, Washington Rector of St. Stephen’s, Providence, Forward In Faith North America. State. in the Diocese of Rhode Island. Non-member subscriptions: $30 per annum. Parish bundles of ten magazines per issue $200 per annum. Subscription enquiries should be sent to Subscribe to Forward in Christ The FIFNA office above. Advertising Only $30 per year for six issues. Contact Julia Smead Pay online at www. fifna.org Email: [email protected] 1-800-225-3661 Or call 1-800-225-3661, we accept Visa, Mastercard, Discover and Ad rates: personal checks. Checks should be made out to Forward in Faith and mailed to P.O. 1/8 page Rector search ad is $125/one Box 210248, Bedford, TX 76095-7248. issue; $200/2 issues Full Forward in Faith membership: Individual $50, Family $75, email 1/4 page: $250, 1/3 page: $450 [email protected], or call 1-800 225-3661 for details. 1/2 page: $675 (Repeat ads are subse- quently cheaper.) Forward in Christ, February, 2016 3 In the News Primates Meeting: ISIS Genocide: Meeting at Canterbury in June, the The European Parliament has condemned Primates of the Anglican Communion voted by a two thirds the Islamic State for committing genocide against Christians majority to sanction the Episcopal Church (TEC) for its and other religious minorities. In early February, the continued advocacy of gay marriage. In a Communique, the Parliament adopted Resolution 0051, “Systematic mass Primates stated that the Episcopal Church may “no longer murder of religious minorities by ISIS,” labeling its crimes represent us on ecumenical and interfaith bodies, should not as genocide. be appointed or elected to an internal standing committee The resolution stated that “religious and ethnic and that while participating in the internal bodies of the minorities, such as Christian Chaldean, Syriac, Assyrian, Anglican Communion, they will not take part in decision Melkite and Armenian, Yazidi, Turkmens, Shabak, Kaka’i, making on any issues pertaining to doctrine or polity.” Sabae-Mandean, Kurdish and Shi’a communities, as well The sanctions will remain in place for three years, as many Arabs and Sunni Muslims, have been targeted and follow on from the Episcopal Church’s decision at its by the so-called ISIS/Daesh” and many have been “killed, 2015 General Convention to authorize gay marriage rites slaughtered, beaten, subjected to extortion, abducted and and adopt gender neutral language in the denomination’s tortured”, their women “enslaved” and “subjected to other marriage canons. However, while barred from representing forms of sexual violence,” forcibly converted,” and have been the Anglican Communion and taking part in its decision “victims of forced marriage and trafficking in human beings” making process, the Episcopal Church still remains part of andIraq’s their churchesOldest Monastery and mosques Destroyed: have been “vandalised.” theTEC broader Still Communion.on the Island: Satellite photos TEC’s Presiding Bishop, Michael have revealed that St. Elijah’s monastery, which was built in Curry, held a press conference in February and stated that 590 AD, has been razed to the ground by the Muslim terror the Episcopal Church had not been “voted off the island” by group ISIS. the Primates of the Anglican Communion, and that “nothing St. Elijah’s monastery stood as a place of Christian would change.” worship for over 1,400 years until it was reduced to dust “We’re not changing,” declared Curry to reporters at and rubble by the fanatical Islamists. “Our Christian history Washington DC’s Press Club, “so there shouldn’t be an in Mosul is being barbarically leveled,” stated Fr. Paul Habib, expectation that in the next three years the Episcopal in Irbil, Iraq, “We see it as an attempt to expel us from Iraq, Church is going to change.” Curry was referring to the eliminatingChurch ofand England finishing Decline: our existence in this land.” denomination’s approval of gay marriage rituals, prompting retired bishop Gene Robinson, who divorced his husband Attendance at Church of Mark in 2014, to congratulate Curry. “Thanks for not England services has plunged to its lowest level ever, with throwing us under the bus – the LGBT community as well church statistics showing that only 1.4 per cent of the as the Episcopal Church, we’re proud of you,” enthused the population of England now attend Anglican services on any onetime Bishop of New Hampshire and the world’s first ever given Sunday. openly gay prelate. Overall average attendance at Sunday services across Whether the unchangingly gay Episcopal Church and the England fell over a five year period by 22,000 to 764,700 in wider Anglican Communion will remain in their troubled 2014, a fall of seven per cent. This represents a two thirds marriage at the end of three years remains to be seen. declineTrans in Jesus:Sunday attendance since the early 1960s. PopeSee pp. and 5-9. Patriarch Meet: A Church of England parish in the Diocese Pope Francis and Patriarch of Manchester, St. Chrysostom, is hosting a trans Jesus play, Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, met “The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven.” this February in Cuba. The meeting focused on building The play is part of Manchester’s Queer Contact festival ecumenical relations and protecting persecuted Christians, and portrays Jesus as a man who had a sex-change to become especially in the Middle East. a woman and returns to earth. Transsexual playwright and According to the Metropolitan Hilarion Alfayev, who is actor, Jo Clifford, describes the performance as, “A play head of the Russian Orthodox Church’s Foreign Relations which imagines Jesus as a trans-woman, and she’s come Department: back to Earth and she’s living in the present day and she tells “In the current tragic situation, we need to put aside many of the familiar stories that we know from the Bible but internal disagreements and join efforts to save Christianity they have a very particular interesting slant on them. And in Forwardthe regions in Christ where it is subjected to most severe she preaches a wee sermon and at the end she invites the persecution.” people around her for a Communion service. urges your prayers for the unity of the “I hope [Jesus] would like it, he and she - because I’m sure Western and Eastern churches and an end to the persecution he was a he and a she.” of Christians. 4 Forward in Christ, www.fifna.org The Primates Meeting, Responses Statements from Archbishop Foley Beach, Forward in Faith and Bishop Iker Archbishop Foley Beach : To the members of the Anglican Church in North America, I am writing to you from Canterbury, England late on the night of January 14th, 2016. Thank you for your prayers and support this week. Although I’m tired at the end of a long day, I wanted to send you an update. I participated fully in the meeting, where the first and primary agenda item was addressing the Episcopal Church’s changes to the doctrine of marriage. We spent most of the week discussing this issue and seeking to come to a common conclusion. We unanimously agreed that these changes “represent a fundamental de- parture from the faith and teaching held by the majority of our Provinces on the doctrine of marriage,” and we wrestled with what the consequences fined as a covenant between one man been efforts to sanction or discipline should be.